is because Allah alone is the Truth, whatever they invoke besides Him is falsehood, and Allah alone is the Most High, the Most Great.” 1 Every act of worship directed to other than Him is false, burdensome, and misguided; every love directed to other than Him is a torment to the one who harbors it; all supposed self-sufficiency possessed by another is but poverty and error; every honor sought through other than Him is humiliation and abasement; and every abundance sought through other than Him amounts to scarcity and need. He is the One in whom all desires culminate, toward whom all requests are directed, and at whose door all needs are laid: “All those in the heavens and the earth ask of Him; every day He is engaged in a matter.” 2

Extending the hands toward Allah also constitutes an acknowledgment that Allah is generous, bountiful, and beneficent: He answers those who call upon Him, relieves those in dire distress, and gives to those who ask. No sin is too great for Him to forgive, nor any need for which He is asked too great for Him to grant. If all the inhabitants of His heavens and earth—their humans and jinn, their living and dead, their moist and dry—were to stand upon a single plain and ask Him, and He gave each one everything he requested, that would not diminish what He possesses by so much as an atom’s weight. His mercy encompasses all things. His right hand is full; no expenditure diminishes it, and it pours forth bounty by night and day. The hadith states: “Indeed, your Lord is Most Modest and Generous; when His servant raises his hands to Him, He is too modest to return them empty-handed.”3

Extending the hands toward Allah also constitutes an acknowledgment of Allah’s knowledge, His encompassing His creation, and His full awareness of them. Nothing concerning them is hidden from Him. Glorified is He: hearing one does not distract Him from hearing another, nor do voices confuse Him despite their multitude, diversity, and convergence. Rather, to Him they are